Category Archives: Live Nation TV

Live Nation TV — Something is wrong with Bruce Springsteen. On Tuesday night, to open a three-night series at MetLife Stadium in his home state of New Jersey, he played three hours and 52 minutes–his longest-ever show on U.S. soil and a demonstration of terrifying fitness for a 66-year-old. On Thursday night, at the same stadium, he ambled right out and promptly beat his record by eight minutes. His TWO-DAY-OLD RECORD. If you’re seeing him on Sunday night, bring protein bars.

Whatever your count, Thursday’s show is easily the speediest-feeling four-hour anything I’ve attended. It’s important to note that in the mythological Legends of Springsteen passed down through the generations, the marathon shows he performed on the Darkness and River tours often included an intermission, or a long speech about how he met Clarence, at the very least an encore break. The MetLife shows had zero of these. For the second night in Jersey, Bruce eschewed the full-River construct that was the basis for the River Tour in the first place, but dug up a bunch of the album’s high spots, including “I’m a Rocker,” “Cadillac Ranch,” and “Hungry Heart,” which he sang, naturally, strolling around the floor. Here’s what else he did.

Live Nation TV — The banner men of southern rock Drive-By Truckers just released a marquee live album this fall. The deluxe version of It’s Great To Be Alive runs three-plus-hours, and comes packaged as a 3-CD behemoth (or 5-LP, if you prefer your behemothing more analog) that includes 35 songs drawn band over the last two decades. And even though the band has played over 2,000 shows since they formed in 1996, co-founder Patterson Hood feels that now’s the perfect time to document it.

“We’re glad people seem to be excited. You never know when it could be, ‘Ugh, these guys again,'” laughs Hood, calling from his new home base in Portland, where he and his family moved this year.

It’s Great To Be Alive, recorded last fall over three nights at the Fillmore in San Francisco, was designed to approximate the loose, rambling feel of one of those 2,000 shows. (A one-disc best-of version titled This Weekend’s the Night! is coming, too.) The band never actually operates with a setlist, so they cull from all corners of their sprawling catalog, from a pre-Truckers track called “Runaway Train” to material from last year’s sterling English Oceans.

“We wanted it to be like an ultimate playlist, from our point of view and the fans’,” Hood said. “I had so much fun getting all geeky about that shit.” Here’s what they came up with.

Live Nation TV — At this point in their career, Zac Brown Band’s rolodex weighs a ton. Originally a promising country outfit with a quiver of early singles and a killer fiddle player, the group quickly outgrew its country trappings to become not only one of the liveliest bands on the road, but one whose list of known associates is quite expansive. They claim Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney, Dave Grohl, and Jimmy Buffett as collaborators, as well as Chris Cornell, Sara Bareilles, the Allman Brothers, and James Taylor. And earlier this year, the band set a record when they sold out three straight back-to-back concerts at Boston’s Fenway Park.

“We were embraced by country radio and fans, and we’re proud and happy about that,” says drummer Chris Fryar. “Country fans are rabid, but musically, we always sort of ran the gamut of influences. We never considered ourselves to be an exclusively country band, just a band.”

Live Nation TV — When Faith No More started playing gigs in seedy San Francisco clubs three decades ago, the idea that they’d one day headline arenas was almost as absurd as the music they were making. But their 2015 comeback, like pretty much everything they did throughout the ’80s and ’90s, has exceeded expectations.

“People seem to like the new record,” says the 52-year-old founding keyboardist Roddy Bottum. “Of course there’s the nostalgia factor, but we also see people who heard about the band but never saw the band, who maybe feel like they missed something the first time around.”